Displaying items by tag: IS

IS has taken credit for an attack on 8 April on the largest US military base in Afghanistan - Bagram airfield, near Kabul. The attack came as 100 Taliban prisoners were released, as a prerequisite for peace talks. More prisoners should be released near the Bagram base. The government is required to free 5,000 Taliban prisoners, with the Taliban releasing 1,000 members of the Afghan security forces. There is disagreement over the procedure, as to whether senior Taliban commanders would be covered by the deal.

In Middle East’s honour-shame culture, a raped woman brings her family shame and they have a duty to kill her. Three Yazidi girls were taken as slaves by IS. Later, while their father was asleep, he saw Jesus. He recognised Him by His nail-pierced hands. Jesus said, ‘You don’t need to kill your daughters. I paid for everyone, so go and get them.’ The man woke and thought this can’t be real. He went back to sleep and had exactly the same dream. He woke up again, went back to sleep, and had the same dream for a third time - one dream for each daughter. He gathered the Yazidi elders and told them what happened. ‘Jesus showed up in my tent, I’m going to get my girls and not kill them.’ Because of Jesus, he welcomed his girls home and persuaded other Yazidi men to take back their daughters without harming them.

In 2014 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the establishment of an Islamic caliphate and that the world’s Muslims owed him their allegiance as ‘Caliph Ibrahim.’ It was an attempt to establish Islamic sovereignty across the Earth much as the Prophet Mohammed enjoyed. Recent events demonstrated that his aspiration died with him. However al-Baghdadi divided the jihadist movement rather than uniting it. IS controlled a hard-line state, offering recruits the chance to live its ‘revolutionary’ vision, which was what made IS such a radical sensation, and was key to al-Baghdadi’s recruiting power. Now both the caliph and the caliphate are gone. Yet IS survives underground, lurking in the shadowy manner al-Baghdadi helped to define for it.

Burkina Faso is quickly going from a peaceful farming nation to an extremist breeding ground. Attacks by IS and al-Qaeda militants have quadrupled since 2017. Over 70,000 people have fled their homes this year. Recently, gunmen in the north surrounded a group of people and executed four Christians who they found wearing crosses. Previously Christians, Muslims, religious people, and those with no faith lived together peacefully, but now violence is directed specifically at Christians, looking for religious symbols and attacking churches. The militants are really trying to bring division between the Muslims and Christians with a ‘divide and conquer’ mentality. This extremism can be traced back to the fall of Libya, when militants trickled into neighbouring countries like Burkina Faso, bringing their weapons and violence with them. While the rest of the world was focused on surging extremist movements in east and central Africa, the seeds of militant Islam in West Africa were quietly being sown.

The US is hoping Europe will help in the IS fight, putting pressuring Britain, France and now Germany. Germany has so far deployed surveillance aircraft and other non-combat military support. Chancellor Angela Merkel faced cross-party pressure to reject the US request for German soldiers to serve in Syria. US special Syria representative told German media that Washington wanted Berlin boots on the ground in the north of Syria. The mandate for Germany's participation in Syria runs out on 31 October, meaning that parliament would be called on to decide what to do beyond that date. The German government spokesman, Steffen Seibert said: ‘When I say that the government intends to continue with its ongoing measures in the framework of the anti-IS coalition, then that means no ground troops. For years Germany has been making a significant and internationally acknowledged contribution to fighting IS.’

Despite President Trump’s stepped-up law enforcement at the Mexican border, arrests have nearly doubled since last year. ‘We are in a full-blown emergency, and I cannot say this more strongly - the system is broken’, said a border protection spokesperson. In May agents apprehended 144,000+ migrants. Now Homeland Security has uncovered an IS plot to send fighters from Syria to the USA by way of migrant routes across the porous border. Mexico is taking ‘decisive action to dismantle human smuggling and trafficking organisations as well as their illicit financial and transportation networks’, by deploying thousands of national guards to control migrant flow. On 8 June, the State Department promised to expand a programme that returns asylum-seekers to Mexico while their claims are adjudicated. Mexico will offer them jobs, healthcare and education. See

Leading the Way ministry has reported that a ‘prince of IS’ has turned from terrorism to Jesus Christ. Mohammed asked ministry worker Peter to meet him, wanting to kill him. Despite the danger, Peter believed God wanted him to go, and boldly spoke the Word of Jesus to the IS leader. After the meeting Mohammed struggled to grasp what he’d heard about who God really is. He met him again, and told him he’d dreamt of a fragrant envelope dripping blood. Peter said God was telling him, ‘Blood had to be shed for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus is sending you a message and you need to give your life to Him.' At that moment Mohammed surrendered his life to Jesus.

A few militants defending a Syrian river bank are all that is left of IS’s ‘caliphate’. 40,000 foreigners from 110 countries joined it; many have gone home, creating security challenges. Thousands are in Kurdish detention camps awaiting relocations. Distinguishing between regretful and repentant hangers-on and truly dangerous fighters is a legal and political nightmare, creating relationship cracks between Europe and US. Meanwhile IS’s black flag flies over an enclave on the Philippine island of Basilan, where a cathedral was bombed. IS-linked groups are still active in Nigeria, Sudan, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and stretches of northern Africa and the Sahel. While they may not have access to the oil revenues that enabled IS to claim to be an actual state, they remain a security threat. IS is also alive and well on the web, with gruesome and well-produced propaganda.

The grandmother of two orphans of French jihadists held in a Syrian camp is suing the French state for failing to bring them back to France. The children, aged five and two, are in the care of Kurdish militia and ‘in real danger without more international military protection’, said their solicitor, Ms Maktouf. ‘These children, born under terror, should not undergo further suffering. France has a duty to protect them.’ The boy’s mother was aged 14 when she ran away from her French home to go to the stronghold of Raqqa in 2014. Ms Maktouf said she will argue in court that France has a duty of care towards the two orphans because it is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. No date has been set for a court hearing.

21 Yazidis who were held by IS have returned home to Iraq from Syria. Most are children, young boys who were held by IS for five years and whom experts believe were likely to have been forcibly trained in IS military camps. The parents of many of these children remain missing. Yazidis are an ethnic religious group. IS targeted both Christians and Yazidis for genocide, although Yazidis were far more heavily targeted for enslavement and captivity. The effect of IS on the children of both groups is profound. Many suffer deep psychological trauma, and were denied the opportunity of childhood. With an entire generation impacted by genocide, many Christian and Yazidi leaders are concerned about the future. The brutality of IS across both Iraq and Syria has left behind deep scars, and has decimated the religious minorities who once lived in these countries.